Tom Brady closes Patriots rally: "We need you guys at your best"
— -- Some New England Patriots fans arrived as early as 3:30 a.m. ET on Monday to be in place for the team's spirited send-off rally at Gillette Stadium, which kicked off at 9:30 a.m. The rally concluded with quarterback Tom Brady saying, "Now it's starting to feel like the Super Bowl!"
At the end of his remarks, Brady yelled, "Go Pats! Let's gooooo!"
Brady was the final speaker after Pro Football Hall of Fame finalist Ty Law, owner Robert Kraft, coach Bill Belichick and special-teams captain Matthew Slater. At one point, Brady took his phone out of his pocket and pointed it in the direction of the crowd to capture the moment.
Fans chanted, "Brady! Brady! Brady!" -- which has been a familiar chant at home games this season.
"I know a lot of you fans were out there at our training camp practices, and we had 20,000 people out there at practice when we started, and it looks like we're getting up there today," Brady told the crowd outside of the team's Hall of Fame at Patriot Place. "It's been a great season, and we've accomplished a lot, but we still have one more to go. It's going to be tough, the toughest one we've had all year. But we're excited about the opportunity, and we couldn't do it without you guys.
"As coach tells us, put all that crap that you have to deal with in the drawer, put it all away for one more week, because we need you guys at your best because we need to be at our best. So get your rest this week. Rest up. Hydrate. And get ready for Sunday because it will be a helluva game. Hopefully we see you back in Foxboro with a win."
The team then boarded buses en route to the airport, with their arrival in Houston scheduled for about 4 p.m. ET.
The morning rally began with former Patriots cornerback Law (1995-2004), a Pro Football Hall of Fame finalist for the first time, addressing the crowd before handing the microphone to Kraft.
After joking that Law taught him how to dance, Kraft then took the opportunity to support Law's Hall of Fame candidacy.
"I want to speak to all the Hall of Fame voters: He's a player that changed the rules of the game," Kraft told the crowd. "He came on this stage, and we gave him a red jacket [as a Patriots Hall of Famer]. Hopefully the next time we see him he's coming back with a gold jacket."
Kraft got a rise out of the crowd by noting that the team was led "by the GOAT, Tom Brady" as how everyone was "led by the GOAT coach" in Belichick.
Taking the mic from Kraft, Belichick thanked him for giving him the opportunity to be a head coach, while also acknowledging the support of the team's fans. Belichick told the crowd that Super Bowl LI will be the team's toughest game of the season, before pumping up Law's Pro Football Hall of Fame candidacy.
"He deserves to be in that gold jacket," Belichick said, before handing the microphone to special-teams captain Slater, whom he referred to as a "tremendous leader, a tremendous player and a great person."
Slater thanked the fans for their support, saying players "believe in our hearts that we have the best fans in all of sports."
"We're taking a team down here to Houston that you can all be proud of," Slater said. "Not only for the 16 wins that we've acquired thus far, [but] for the men we have on this team. I think this is a close-knit group, we love playing for one another, we love representing this city, this town, this region.
"But I think you guys have heard enough from me. We want to hear from the man. The legend. No. 12. Thomas Brady."
Brady, as he often does on the field, capped off the rally in emphatic fashion.
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